Photo: Wikimedia Commons
According to Oddity Central (UK), the Danionella cerebrum fish was first known in the 1980s, but was only officially recognized in 2021, after scientists discovered small physical differences between this species and Danionella translucida.
These two fish are very small, only as big as a human fingernail, and are so similar that they can only be distinguished under a microscope.
Recently, a team of researchers also discovered another fascinating feature of Danionella cerebrum that not only sets it apart from its peers, but also puts it very high on the list of the world's loudest animals. This tiny transparent fish uses a combination of acoustic muscles and drum cartilage to produce a sound as loud as a gunshot.
“This small fish can produce sounds of over 140 dB at a distance of 10 to 12 mm – equivalent to the noise a human would hear from an aircraft taking off at a distance of 100 m and quite unusual for an animal of such small size,” said Dr Ralf Britz, ichthyologist at the Senckenberg Natural History Collection.
There are some very loud animals in the world, such as the pistol shrimp, which can produce sounds as loud as 250 decibels, but fish are often among the loudest animals on the planet. So it is unusual to find an animal that can make sounds as loud as an ambulance siren or a jackhammer, especially at such a small size. But the mechanism that Danionella cerebrum uses to produce its piercing sound is even more fascinating.
High-speed video recordings show that to produce the loud sound, the ribs next to the fish's swim bladder have a special muscle in a piece of empty cartilage.
“This device accelerates the drum cartilage with over 2,000g of force and fires it into the bladder to create rapid pulses. These pulses are strung together to create sound with alternating bilateral or unilateral muscle contractions,” explains Dr. Britz.
Interestingly, the ribs of males are much stiffer than those of females, which is likely why female Danionella cerebrum do not make such loud sounds. Scientists have yet to discover the purpose of these sounds, but they speculate that it may help the fish navigate murky waters or it may be an aggressive tactic used by males to warn off competition during mating.
Source: https://giadinh.suckhoedoisong.vn/loai-ca-ti-hon-chi-dai-12mm-phat-ra-am-thanh-to-nhu-tieng-may-bay-cat-canh-172240615132013782.htm
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